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Abstract

Two cycles of modified ear-to-row recurrent selection was used to increase the grain yield of an open-pollinated variety of corn nd to estimate the gain from selection. In each cycle, 121 selected ears were evaluated in 3 research stations by an 11 x 11 simple lattice design. Based on a selection intensity of 33 and 25% in the first and second cycles, respectively, a gain of 2.97 and 3.28% was expected from interfamily selection. Also, the realized gain from the first cycle of selection for yield was 3.6% of original population.
The average estimates of narrow-sense heritability for yield, 100- seed weight, number of seeds per ear-row, ear length and number of rows per ear were 51.4, 66.2, 73.2, 74.1 and 74.4%, respectively. The genotypic correlation coefficients of grain yield with ear length, number of seeds per-row, number of rows per ear, and 100-seed weight were 0.51**, 0.46**, 0.22* and 0.08, respectively.